Antti Alanen: Film Diary: Tampere Film Festival: National Competition 8

Pasi Sleeping Myllymäki: The Sleeping Interview. Eng/Fin | 93 min In the presence of Pasi Sleeping Myllymäki, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Marjo Viitala, Henna Välkky, Eesu Lehtola, Malakias, and Sanni Priha. Tampere Film Festival (TFF), Plevna 2, Friday 9 March 2018 THE SLEEPING INTERVIEW NUKKUVA HAASTATTELU Pasi Sleeping Myllymäki | Finland 2017 | Experimental, Animation | 5 min TFF: "Sleeping Myllymäki: “Movie art is free visual art and free audial art together. And the script of my movie is more important than my face and more important than my studio.”" "Sleeping Myllymäki: “Elokuvataide on vapaa visuaalinen ja auditiivinen taidemuoto, ja elokuvani käsikirjoitus on tärkeämpi kuin omat kasvoni tai studioni.” " AA: Pasi "Sleeping" Myllymäki's self-portrait for the Venice Biennale 2017: an interview as a self-interview as an anti-interview. Conducted in English with excerpts from three vintage movies made by Myllymäki together with Risto "Legend" Laakkonen they introduce his "glorious studio" (a humble barn), a pole dance, and a ride under ten tractors. Modest in means, rich in wit. Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen: Song for Billy. SONG FOR BILLY LAULU BILLYLLE Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen | United Kingdom 2017 | Documentary | 19 min TFF: "Haunting images from England’s northern coastline coalesce into the tableaux-like meditation on a lost era. The mesmerising power of the sea contrasts with the vivid re-enacting of the tragic death of a coal miner. The sublime post-industrial landscape gleams in the photographs of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, accompanied by a New York based percussion group." "Englannin pohjoisrannikon jylhät maisemat sulautuvat kuvaelman kaltaiseen pohdintaan kadonneesta ajasta. Meren lumoava voima luo jyrkän kontrastin todentuntuisesti kerratulle tarinalle kaivostyöläisen traagisesta kuolemasta. Upea jälkiteollinen maisema heijastuu Sirkka-Liisa Konttisen valokuvissa, joiden taustalla kuullaan newyorkilaisen lyömäsoitinryhmän musiikkia. " AA: Based on Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen's The Coal Coast photographs and the stories of the ex-miner Freddie Welsh, set to sound by So Percussion. An elegy of an industrial way of life, destroyed by Margaret Thatcher. Meditative and poetic, with a sense of the surge of the sea and the patina of time. Marjo Viitala: Valehtelija / The Liar. VALEHTELIJA LIAR GIRL Marjo Viitala | Finland 2018 | Fiction | 15 min TFF: "Liina lives together with her mother. Her mother is often working night shifts so Liina needs to get by herself. In the same staircase, where Liina and mother live, is an apartment where a man died some time ago. One morning Liina hears a dog barking from the apartment. Liina starts making up a story of the dog and tells it to everyone during the day. A nightly rendezvous in the dead man’s apartment makes Liina’s stories become the truth." "Liina asuu äitinsä kanssa. Äiti on usein yövuorossa, joten Liinan on pärjättävä yksin. Samassa rapussa on asunto, jossa eräs mies jokin aika sitten kuoli. Eräänä aamuna Liina kuulee koiran haukuntaa tuosta asunnosta. Hän alkaa sepittää tarinaa koirasta ja kertoo sitä päivän aikana kaikille. Yöllinen kohtaaminen kuolleen miehen asunnossa muuttaa Liinan tarinat todeksi. " AA: The story of Liina, a schoolgirl and daughter of a single mother. Liina is a compulsive liar who is getting more and more hopelessly tangled in the web of her fabrications. The barking of a dog behind a door of a dead tenant and the discovery in the washroom that laundry has been stolen lead her to meet a boy without means and addicted to drugs. Fiction turns to reality, and reality turns out to be more complex than could have been anticipated. Well made and intriguing. Henna Välkky, Eesu Lehtola: Me olemme unessa / We Are in a Dream. ME OLEMME UNESSA WE ARE IN A DREAM Henna Välkky, Eesu Lehtola | Finland 2017 | Animation, Documentary, Experimental | 7 min TFF: "There is a line of men chasing us through a city where we can’t run. The escape is gruelling, our feet are wet and we drown deeper. We are not afraid, we have seen this before. This film is based on personal recordings of people narrating their recurring dreams." "Joukko miehiä ajaa meitä takaa halki kaupungin, emmekä voi juosta. Pako on uuvuttavaa, jalkamme ovat märät ja vajoamme syvemmälle. Emme pelkää, olemme nähneet tämän aiemminkin. Elokuva perustuu ihmisten kertomuksiin toistuvista unistaan. " AA: Over two years in the making, created and layered using many animation techniques, based on people's accounts of their recurrent dreams, a fascinating montage in the cyberworld, with a feeling of movement in depth, apparitions emerging and re-emerging, "and then I wake up". Teppo Airaksinen: Katto / The Ceiling. KATTO THE CEILING Teppo Airaksinen | Finland 2017 | Fiction | 15 min TFF: "On the brink of divorce a middle aged man, Olavi, retreats to his cabin by the lake. After a few days he finds that the ceiling has come down making him unable to stand up straight. His friend Tuomas arrives and insists that something has to be done whereas Olavi is content with the limited space. The two men start lifting the ceiling – but which of the men is really in need of help?" "Avioeron partaalla oleva keski-ikäinen Olavi vetäytyy rantamökilleen. Muutaman päivän kuluttua hän huomaa, että katto on romahtanut eikä hän mahdu enää seisomaan suorassa. Olavin ystävä Tuomas saapuu paikalle ja vaatii, että jotain on tehtävä. Olaville rajallinen tila kuitenkin riittää. Miehet alkavat nostaa kattoa paikoilleen, mutta kumpi onkaan enemmän avun tarpeessa? " AA: In a way The Ceiling is the opposite to Quadraturin screened yesterday. In it the tenant's tiny room kept expanding. In The Ceiling the retreat cabin's ceiling keeps sinking. Perhaps the phenomenon is a signal alerting Olavi that life is not in control. An intriguing tale of depression. Malakias: Eläintarha / The Zoo. ELÄINTARHA THE ZOO Malakias | Finland 2017 | Animation | 4 min “No More Presidents” -White Lion, When The Children Cry AA: A fascinating animation based on many multi-layered techniques (cut-out, computer, etc.). A satire on the world today: world politics as a human zoo. Drolatic, rich, and eccentric like all the films of Malakias such as Forbidden Games (2015), Flower-Grave (2015), Fist of Fire (2013), Save the Rhinoceros (2010), and Bloody Hands (2009). Sanni Priha: Puoli yhdeksän raivo / Prime Time Rage. PUOLI YHDEKSÄN RAIVO PRIME TIME RAGE Sanni Priha | Finland 2017 | Documentary | 30 min TFF: "For every generation there is a war story to be told. The story is told in the evenings.It is like a movie about the good and the bad, us and them, profits and losses.Some images are so impressive that they are turned into symbols and monuments;beginnings, turning points and endings. This is a film about the story of warwhich the evening news told to us, growing up in the 1990s.The story was told with images of burning oil fields. It was reported that on its withdrawal the defeated side ignited the oil wells in fire, causing major financial losses.There were no images of human casualties. The story began when we we kids and it still goes on." "Jokaisella sukupolvella on sotatarina kerrottavanaan. Se kerrotaan iltaisin, ja se on kuin elokuva hyvästä ja pahasta, meistä ja niistä, voitoista ja tappioista. Jotkin kuvat ovat niin vaikuttavia, että niistä tehdään symboleita ja muistomerkkejä – alkuja, käännekohtia ja loppuja. Tämä on elokuva sotatarinasta, joka kerrottiin meille 1990-luvulla kasvaneille iltauutisissa. Tarinan kuvituksena olivat palavat öljykentät, jotka hävinnyt puoli tarinan mukaan sytytti vetäytyessään ja aiheutti näin mittavat taloudelliset tappiot. Ihmisuhreista ei näytetty kuvia. Tarina alkoi, kun olimme lapsia, ja se jatkuu edelleen. " AA: A meta-documentary on television's evening news bulletins. A focus is on the events 25-30 years ago: the end of the cold war, the fall of the wall, the liberation of Mandela. Another focus is on the US wars in the Middle East. A further one is on Finland's years of depression in the early 1990s when many people lost their financial security after a crash of the banking system based on a reckless credit practice. Finland's contribution to the international arms trade is another theme. The film is about the experience of war, violence becoming mundane and a sense of fear becoming permanent through television news bulletins. An interesting film which gives a lot to think about. BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: PASI SLEEPING MYLLYMÄKIN AT THE VENICE BIENNALE AND SONG FOR BILLY AT THE AMBER WEBSITE: BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: PASI SLEEPING MYLLYMÄKIN AT THE VENICE BIENNALE AND SONG FOR BILLY AT THE AMBER WEBSITE: THE SLEEPING INTERVIEW from the Venice Biennale site Pasi "Sleeping" Myllymäki & Mika Taanila in the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2017 21.11.2016 International, Member artists' venues Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki’s and Mika Taanila’s art will be presented in the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2017. Produced by Moderna Museet, Sweden, and curated by Mats Stjernstedt, the exhibition Mirrored brings together Nordic artists from different generations. Other representants include Charlotte Johannesson and Nina Cannell (Sweden) and Siri Aurdal and Jumana Manna (Norway). The exhibition features a selection of Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki‘s (b. 1950) super 8 films from the late 1970s and the early 1980s. Myllymäki made several dozens of anarchist and inventive super 8 films with Risto “Legend” Laakkonen between 1976 and 1985. Myllymäki’s films have been presented domestically and internationally e.g. at Avanto Festival (2006), VIDEO-EX (2009), International Film Festival Rotterdam (2014), Videomedeja (2014), and Mänttä Art Festival (2016). Mika Taanila will present in Venice a new series of artworks based on film criticism. Mika Taanila (b. 1965) is a filmmaker and visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. He works with documentaries, experimental film and visual arts. Human engineering, utopias, failures and man-machines are recurring themes in his films and installations. Taanila’s short films have been screened altogether at more than 300 international film festivals and special events. In 2015, Taanila was awarded with the prestigious Ars Fennica Award, the biggest Finnish art award. The exhibition in the Nordic Pavilion revives the collaboration between Finland, Sweden and Norway. Past years Finnish media artists in the Nordic Pavilion include Terike Haapoja (2013), Adel Abidin (2007), Liisa Lounila (2005), and Eija-Liisa Ahtila (1999). Commissionned and produced by Frame Contemporary Art Finland, The Finnish Pavilion will present an immersive multimedia installation by Erkka Nissinen and Nathaniel Mellors, curated by Xander Karskens (De Hallen Haarlem). La Biennale di Venezia, May 13 – November 26 SONG FOR BILLY from the Amber Films site: In 2017 we completed Song for Billy, a 20 minute film using Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s The Coal Coastphotographs and new footage from the beaches of East Durham. It was developed in collaboration with the New York musicians and composers, So Percussion and Easington ex-miner Freddie Welsh. We’d wanted to make a film with The Coal Coast photographs since the completed exhibition was premiered at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art back in 2003. We’d also been talking about doing a live score film project for a while. When Forma / East Durham Creates suggested a possible Coal Coast collaboration with So Percussion we were more than happy to meet up with them. Sitting round a table in a cafe in Seaham both Amber and So felt the collaboration could work… Sirkka set to digitising her negs, expanding the range of the imagery. We experimented with timelapse video and the rhythms it generated. We exchanged material with So Percussion, who were writing pieces back in New York. In the middle of this we were drawn to the storytelling of Easington ex-miner Freddie Welsh. A live scored version was premiered in August 2016 at St John’s Church, Seaham, as part of Forma / East Durham Creates’ From Out A Darker Sea, and has since been performed in the USA and toured in England. The standalone version formed part of a Side Gallery exhibition of The Coal Coast in 2017 and has been shown at a number of film festivals